


A Woman's Work

by morganasmyths



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Johnlock - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-19
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-09-25 14:40:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9824951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morganasmyths/pseuds/morganasmyths
Summary: Sherlock and John have disappeared.Eurus Holmes does not know why, but all she does know is that they are not here. And she is scared.Desperate to find them, she recruits some old friends - people with the gift of unparalleled smartness, the people she needed to find them, to solve this case.Because sometimes, men just won't do.AU: Johnlock, Mary's alive (just a friend), Sherlock found out about Eurus earlier in the year (unspecified but before summer) and has been playing violin with her weekly.





	1. Brains

Eurus Holmes was scared. 

She was used to feeling intense emotions - they seemed to come in waves. Once upon a time, she had not been able to understand them, but now she can experience them, or at least parts of them. She was limited to feeling only the strongest of every emotion, and currently she was terrified. 

Overtime, Eurus' relationship with Sherlock Holmes turned from one of hostility and uneasiness to one of familiarity and happiness - she always looked forward to Sundays, knowing she would see Sherlock at precisely four o'clock. They had become the brother and sister they never had been previously, and after months of this new warm relationship, Sherlock began bringing John with him. 

Eurus noticed how rarely John left Sherlock's side. Eurus noticed the admiration and warmth in his eyes as he watched Sherlock play the violin to her. Eurus noticed the love in all of Sherlock's being as he embraced John, having finished his weekly piece. Eurus felt very strongly for the both of them, and that was dangerous. 

She was known to have a lack of control over her mind and her emotions, which could shift constantly, and for that had to remain inside these walls, but that didn't stop the positive emotions existing as well as the negative ones. She loved them, she knew she did. She loved their relationship, the fact that they were together and loved each other with the intensity that they did. And she felt the very, very strong need to protect them. 

Sometimes these emotions shifted from love to anger, or even to sadness. Sometimes she screamed at them, sometimes she cried. Sometimes they left early.

But they always came back.

They understood her, or at least some of her, more than anyone ever had before. Sometimes John tried to play the violin, and she would laugh so hard she would cry. And then Sherlock would wrap his arms around him and help guide the notes to him, and she would feel her chest fill up with love and warmth for her two brothers standing before her. 

But they weren't there today, and it was eight past four on Sunday the eleventh of December. She had screamed at the guard after five minutes, he had flinched very slightly but had tried to pretend he hadn't. But it didn't matter anyway, he didn't know anything. Then she had screamed and screamed for Mycroft for a full minute because he would know where Sherlock and John were as they obviously weren't here. She knew Mycroft was here - he had visited her earlier. Mycroft's visits were rare. She should have figured out that something would be different if he came. 

Then when it reached seven past she had stopped screaming and began to think. That was the only thing she could do in this cell - think. Something had happened to them. If they weren't in the country or weren't able to make it today she would have been told. But she wasn't. The truth was staring her in the face. The empty space in front of her was still ringing with her screams as the clock turned to eight past four. 

They were in trouble.

-

One week later, at four o'clock, Mycroft came to visit again. It was brief, of course it was. He knew perfectly well how she was getting on and they both knew she didn't really prefer Mycroft even if she appreciated what he did for her here. He asked her what she wanted as a Christmas present. Christmas presents had become an annual thing for them now, almost as Mycroft's only opportunity to provide her with more than an empty cell. He tried, but there were limitations. Sometime earlier this year, they'd had a stand for her violin drilled into the wall so that it didn't have to remain on the floor when she wasn't using it. She'd loved the stand. Mycroft had been very pleased.

It was very obvious Mycroft wasn't going to tell her anything about Sherlock and John or their whereabouts. Even worse, she became concerned that he didn't even know. She didn't let the idea that they weren't coming back out of choice be an option. It just simply wasn't. 

She already knew what she wanted as a Christmas present. She'd been planning it since last week, and one whole week to dwell on a single subject is an awfully long time to plan the intricate details. She wanted brains for Christmas. Specific brains. Mycroft told her he would do his best. 

-

One week later, at four o'clock', four people came to visit unsupervised. Mycroft really had done his best, she'd gotten everything she'd wished for. In front of her stood exactly the brains she'd wanted: Irene Adler, Mary Morstan and Molly Hooper.


	2. Mortuary Secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan is put into action and the squad confer as to how they're going to help the boys.  
> //  
> There's a lot of dialogue in this (sorry) but the action picks up later xx

Exactly two weeks later, on the eighth of January, Molly Hooper walked into work st St Bart's hospital. She swiped her key card and made her way down the hall to the mortuary, but not before colliding clumsily with the security manager on the way. She stuttered an apology and turned very red before carrying on quickly down the hall.

Upon reaching the lab, she switched her winter coat for a white lab coat and pressed through the back door and downstairs to the mortuary. It was empty - perfect. One wall was lined with large cabinets, each containing a body. There was a single window that was at the same height as the pavement (seeing as the rest of the room was virtually underground). From this window came three taps and a scrape - the passcode - and Molly scampered over and opened it as far as it would go, allowing Mary to slide through. 

Molly pulled her keys out of her pocket, giving one to Mary. 

"Number 339," she said, pointed vaguely towards one end of the cabinets where the 300s were. They both set to finding the right locker and opening it, pulling out the slab and unzipping the body bags to reveal Irene and Eurus. They'd had to arrive undercover due to the fact that people would hunt them down if their locations were broadcasted.

After a wonderfully stressful switch of body bags and pretending to be dead, Eurus and Irene found themselves locked away, waiting to be collected for the mission briefing the next day.

"I hope we've all been doing our research," Irene said, fixing her hair in her reflection on one of the cabinets. "Why couldn't you just ask Mycroft anyway?" 

"Because he's got this rather annoying infatuation with rules," Eurus replied with a roll of her eyes. Irene smiled knowingly. Eurus liked her. 

"I haven't seen Sherlock or John in ages," Molly contributed. "I had thought it odd that he hadn't been round the labs in a while. We usually see each other a few times a week there."

"Have you got what we asked for Molly?" She turned to her.

Molly nodded and offered a shy smile, holding up the security manager's keys and key card. 

"He won't notice they're gone until noon - that's when he does his first check up," Molly explained.

"Excellent," Mary grinned. 

"I only have about an hour before everyone back in Sherringford wakes up again," Eurus explained casually. "So let's get moving. Where do we start - Molly?" 

Molly nodded in reply and drew out some paper files.

"I managed to get some photographs of the last recorded CCTV footage of them," she said, opening the file and handing some pixelated black and white photographs to the others. "Sorry for the rubbish quality, I had to take photos of Mycroft's computer then zoom in later." 

The photos showed Sherlock and John eating at a cafe in China Town. Eurus paused over one of Sherlock and John laughing and gazing at each other. Hastily she put it down and look up to Molly.

She brought out some more sheets of paper from the file and placed them in the centre of the table they were gathered around. She pointed to a few highlighted pieces and pictures as she spoke. "Lestrade helped me into his office - I'm not actually quite sure why he could get in - but anyway, I found some articles and information on this local terrorist-type organisation. I'm not sure who they are or how they operate but I think Mycroft suspects that they have something to do with Sherlock and John's disappearance. They were in the same place as the Baker Street file."

"How did you get these?" Mary asked, looking up briefly from one of the photographs. "Won't he notice they're missing?"

"I photocopied them," Molly explained. "Mycroft had a machine in his office." Mary nodded and looked back to the articles. 

"Well this is all very interesting," Irene said, gazing a picture of one of the suspects of the organisation.

"How so?" Eurus asked, noticing immediately Irene's smugness. She had something.

"While I was doing a little digging, I came across exactly this man." As she spoke she flipped the photograph from the article around so that they could all see it. There was nothing extraordinary about his face, nothing that would make him easily recognisable. He had dark hair, round eyes and thin lips with some dark stubble surrounding them. "I asked where I could find him and not many knew, although I did get a few pointers."

She brought out some pieces of paper from her body bag and laid them out on the table so that all could see.

"Mycroft may be powerful, but he can't get information from criminals," Irene smirked. "I happen to know a few, or at least what they like, and I managed to acquire a little information. The organisation call themselves the Cherry Pickers."

"That's not very intimidating," Molly giggled. Eurus smirked at her comment. 

"I suppose not," Irene agreed, "But that doesn't make them any less ruthless. They call themselves 'peaceful protesters' because they don't directly attack largely populated areas in the hope of raising awareness of an issue, but rather they like to cherry-pick certain individuals, usually more well-known ones, to prove a point and have something changed."

"By 'cherry-pick' you mean... Kidnap?" Mary said. Irene nodded.

"And that's what's happened to Sherlock and John?" Molly concluded, looking through some pictures of the man in Irene's papers.

"Almost definitely," Eurus said. "And it makes sense. Mine and Sherlock's brother basically runs the British government, if you wanted something changed he seems like a good place to start. So how do we find them?"

"That's where it runs short," Irene admitted," because, you see, no one actually knows. I've had several people keeping an eye out for me in case something crops up, but there have been no returns of any importance in two weeks so I'm guessing they're not round the corner." 

"And the ones not of importance?" Mary asked.

"I took the time to write them out properly," Irene said, lifting some of her papers to reveal her elegant hand scrawled across many lines. "They all said a similar thing - south east."

They gazed across the quotes. One person had said 'turn the compass to find east is east, but south is not south'. They all noticed this. Turning the compass seemed utterly paradoxical. A compass was supposed to already know the direction, there is no manual adjustments to a compass - it's magnetism. The poles cannot sway, and neither can a compass. 

"Unless..." Eurus's eyes widened.

"What?" Mary asked urgently. 

"They mean turn the compass vertically." Upon seeing their blank faces she took a piece of paper and stole a pen from Molly's pocket to draw it out. She drew a simple cross and labelled each line N, E, S and W. 

Then she stabbed the pen into the table where the line labelled N pointed to. Molly winced on the impact of the pen sinking into the table. 

"So North is the pen, yes?" Eurus said. They all nodded. "Any old compass would point like this:" she gestured to her drawing. "N points to the pen - North. Yes?" They all nodded again. "So if a compass turns like this-" she turned the paper sideways so that the line labelled 'W' was now pointing to the pen. "It wouldn't make sense, because then the magnetism involved in the way a compass works would be inaccurate and thrown off course, agreed?"

They murmured their agreements, each being somewhat familiar with magnetic laws. Eurus turned the paper back so that the 'N' was once again pointing to the pen. 

"But what," she said. "If by turning the compass they meant turn it this way?" With these words she lifted the paper vertically, so that the flat side with the drawing on was facing them, rather than the table and the line labelled 'N' was pointing towards the ceiling. 

"East is still east, but south is not south," Irene smirked. "Smart." 

Molly had turned pale. "Does that mean that they're... Underground?" Her voice shook. Eurus nodded. She could feel the anger building up inside her. She needed to control it. If she had an outburst here everything would fall apart. She tried to switch off her emotions, become in control, but that made her feel less like she wanted to help at all, so she turned them on again and tried to breathe calmly. 

"We will find them," she announced, perhaps a little louder than necessary but no one said anything. 

"Well, we have a bearing at the very least," Mary added. "And this shows why they haven't been picked up on any CCTV." 

"Which suggests that they're not far away," Irene added. 

"How so?" 

"Well if they were drugged outside of Baker Street, as the CCTV seems to imply," Irene gestured to Molly's photographs. "Then they would most likely be in a public place. It's not easy to inject a lot of poison into anyone's system where-ever you are, and much less in broad daylight, hence the dosage was small. True it could be powerful, but even powerful drugs in small dosages don't keep a person down for more than a few hours." 

"So they can't be more than a few hours away!" Molly's eyes lit up. 

"Not necessarily," Mary said solemnly. "They could have been given a better dosage once they were in a more isolated place." 

"But it does give us a destination." This time it was Eurus's eyes that lit up. Irene raised her eyebrows. "If they were given a more intense dosage, which seems the most likely course of action, then they would have to stop outside of CCTV. Where-ever they stopped, there's bound to be clues." 

"So we find the first place outside London where CCTV stops?" Mary finished. "But couldn't that just be anywhere outside London?" 

"No!" Molly slapped a hand to her forehead. "East!" 

"Okay..." Irene continued slowly. "Anywhere to the East." 

"No," Molly held up Eurus's drawing. "Anywhere East underground." Irene and Mary's eyes widened in understanding as she emphasised the last word. 

"But how does this give us a destination?" Irene asked, her eyebrows creasing once more. 

“We just need to find an entrance to underground somewhere East of London," Eurus said, folding her arms. There was a pause. 

"And this is what we have to go on?" 

Eurus drew her eyebrows together. "What?" 

Irene shrugged. "I don't know it's just... Not much to go on." 

"Better than nothing," Mary pointed out. 

"I know, but it could still take us weeks and none of us have that sort of time," she explained. 

There was silence. 

"Did you find anything, Mary?" Molly asked, breaking the silence. Mary nodded. She opened her mouth to speak when Eurus interrupted her.

"Trains!" she cried. They all turned to stare at her. "Sherlock knew a guy who knows lots about trains!" 

"And trains go underground, is that what you're thinking?" Mary asked. Eurus nodded, turning to her, not failing to notice the slight upwards tilt to her lips. 

"What did you find?" Eurus asked earnestly. 

"A few people had heard a thing or two about disappearances from London, so I asked for more details," Mary said. "As Irene said, there wasn't a general enthusiasm about giving said details but I managed to scrape a few - some of which link quite closely to trains which is where this gets interesting." 

"So trains seems to be the right way to go?" Molly asked. Eurus nodded. 

"I think so. What are the 'details' that link to trains?" 

"Not much," Mary shrugged apologetically. "Just a lot of clues and warnings left at tube and train stations."

"Why would kidnappers leave a clue?" Irene asked.

"They could just all be warnings," Molly added. Mary shook her head.

"I don't think so," she said. "I looked a few of them up and asked others to do the same. All the photos we came back with are more cryptic than threatening." She took her phone out of her pocket and unlocked it, swiping through a few photos until she reached the ones she'd saved. They were clues indeed, with strange passages inscribed on walls and tickets.

"But here's the really interesting part," Mary said, flipping a few photos forward to reveal a picture of a train ticket from Scotland, but where the lines should be orange, they were deep red.

"Cherry Pickers," Molly mumbled. They looked at her. She blushed. "Sorry, quite obvious just the noting the colour of the tickets."

"That's what I saw too," Mary agreed. "So it's definitely them, and they leave one of these tickets at every place a person goes missing."

"What does that mean?" Molly asked.

"That means they want people to know that they've taken someone," Irene said. "And when you piece it together with the clues instead of the warnings, it all begins to make sense. They want to get people under the impression that they can be found, that this is some kind of treasure hunt.”

"But we've got a head start," Eurus said with a smile.

"We have?" Molly's eyebrows creased.

"How many do you think of these treasure hunters start with directions?"

"Good point."

"So what are we looking for now?" Irene asked.

"A train station a few hours East outside London, preferably near somewhere underground, where there is no CCTV." Eurus said.

"Wait," Molly said, interrupting everyone as they began to move towards the door. "You said they leave clues right?" Mary nodded.

"Then there should be some for Sherlock and John's disappearance," Eurus finished her train of thought. Molly crossed her arms.

"I say we start at where we saw them last," she announced. "It gives us a precise location and it's probably better to go to this East-of-London-underground-no-CCTV-drug-spot with as many clues as possible."

Irene nodded, once again making for the door. "That does seem a little more logical. So, to China Town?"

"We just can't get carried away," Eurus said quietly, more to herself than anyone else. Molly's eyes flickered briefly to Eurus but she simply swallowed and followed Irene and Mary out of the door. 

-

After a quick break-into St Bart's security department and some CCTV tampering, Molly left the manager's keys on his desk and led the others out. Grey skies continued their reign over London, the stone buildings standing firm and familiar as the four made their way to China Town. The CCTV footage told them that the restaurant they had eaten at was called 'The Lucky Cat', and their table was conveniently the one closest to the window. 

Upon arriving they asked if they could eat at that table, and after a moment the waitress agreed, hesitantly pulling another table closer in order to accommodate the four of them in such an oddly chosen place. Irene's fingers subtly traced the undersides and edges of the table. After a few moments she withdrew them to her lap.

"Well," she said bleakly. "Nothing hidden there."

"We're looking out for a train ticket," Eurus reminded the group as the menus arrived. The waitress turned their attention to the drinks menu which was already on the table, wedged between the salt and pepper stand. Eurus' eyes narrowed at the menu. 

After the waitress had left, Eurus reached forward gingerly and opened it. Nothing. With a sigh she went to put it back but Molly stopped her. The menus were decorated with the logo of the restaurant on the front, a bold red square with gold writing. She slipped her fingers under this square and her face lit up. Triumphantly she held up the ticket.

Eurus exhaled shakily. So they had been kidnapped - or rather, cherry-picked by this strange organisation. And they wanted Mycroft to change something. Admittedly it might just be easier to simply convince Mycroft to do whatever these people wanted, but there was no knowing how large that request was, nor how much of an impact it may have upon the country. 

Additionally, she had formed a team of the best minds in the country, in the planet, she reminded herself. If anyone was going to find Sherlock and John, it was them. 

"Careful," Mary said, reaching out to take the ticket and put it somewhere safer than the open air. "If the CCTV caught footage of Sherlock and John here then there's no doubt that they're watching us. They know we're following them - they probably already did. Let's be on our guard."

Molly nodded, blushing a little at her thoughtlessness. 

"Well, who's hungry?" Irene smiled charmingly. There was a general murmur of agreement and the menus were lifted for close examination. 

Eurus' mind flickered back to the ticket. Clue number one. The game was on.


End file.
